


Home is Where We're Weakest

by JoCarthage



Category: Fast & Furious 7 (2014), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:15:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom and Brian have built a home back in LA with their family around them, but they aren't fixed. They aren't even in the shop. They're still running with stripped gears and sometime a reckoning is going to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly finished, but I'll be posting chapters, with the entire thing up by premier night in the U.S. for Fast and the Furious 7.  
> UPDATE: Clearly I didn't get this up by the premier and I'm doing something I haven't done before. I'm taking back the third chapter and replacing it with a much better one. I thought I knew where the story was going enough to put it up, but then I could see how to do it better. I've posted the old chapter 3 here: http://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/116357321598/i-deleted-this-chapter-from-my-fast-and-the
> 
> Also: I updated the tags. If hearing depictions of domestic violence will squick or trigger you, check out some of my fluffier stuff. Here there be dragons and angst.

Dom leaned back in his chair, surveying the decimated dinner table. Brian was still gnawing on a chicken bone, but that was all that was left of 2 plates of drumsticks and another tray of white meat. Mia had insisted Dom do the cooking, so meat and potatoes it was.

It was too rainy to grill properly, but he’d managed a bit of a roast for their family. There were even some spices that didn’t come in a bottle, courtesy of Roman’s most recent travels. He’d bragged up and down, left and right about the amount of work he’d put into finding and testing and smuggling them, but at the end of the day the best testament to Rome’s work was how entirely covered in sauce Brian’s face was. Dom hid a grin, thinking the man beside him looked more like the boy who’d scuffled with Vince outside of the old garage.

His heart chilled at that thought, remembering the slickness of Vince’s blood on his hands. He stood, grabbing his plate and Brian’s. His lips quirked at Brian’s squawk of dismay at losing his plate, but Brian seemed to sense the wind blowing and stood as well, following Dom into the back entrance of the kitchen.

He set the plates down in the 2/3 full sink, warm water sopping up near the edge but not overflowing. he could feel Brian moving around behind him, glasses down on the counter, putting away some of the utensils Dom had pulled out but not used. Then he heard the soft a pad of feet behind him, and a pair of suntanned arms folded around his chest. Dom stood still, not relaxing into them, not ducking his head against Brian’s neck. He just breathed and felt Brian’s arms tighten.

“It’s like that, is it?” Brian’s voice rasped against him, breath cool on his scull.

Dom didn’t say anything. He knew Brian knew these dinners were tough and important. They nearly left chairs for the ghosts, before deciding it was too ominous. His father’s tradition, his family who no longer sat with them, the family who has joined them on the way. The waves of feelings could just be too much sometimes.

Brian crossed his arms a bit further around Dom’s chest, and leaned his head in:

“Where I come from, cooks don’t clean. Move over.”

Dom stepped back into him, finally letting himself appreciate the furnace of warmth that Brian brought to everything he did. Brian eased in front of him, and as the soft hum of outdoor conversation rolled over him, he plunged his hands into the warm sink. First he pulled out the soaked plates, then set the sink to draining. They’d had an incident with a misplaced socket wrench and Brian had since instituted a process.

Dom cocked a hip against the wooden counter and watched. Brian’s body reminded him in different ways of the different forms it had taken since they’d first met. He still walked with the whippy confidence, that basketball hop on the pads of his feet. He’d filled out, in the shoulders, in the chest, in the same places most men did in their late teens. Something between hunger and drive had kept it from him until they’d met, but in the time they’d had since then, he’d filled in.

But his hips: they’d stayed the same. Tightly enclosed in soft denim, pockets always with a few spare washers and nuts. Dom knew he carried a spare $20 in his back-left pocket, because he picked it from him as often as he could, just for the look on his face. More than one memorable evening had started with a little pick-pocketing.

He liked this version of Brian best. Casual, confident. Full of what he was and what he knew himself to be and what he is and what he could be. Also: entirely, completely, and utterly Dom’s.

The light from the fire outside was glowing red in Brian’s hair, making him look even more like a beach god than usual. Dom could feel his blood flowing at the thought. Pinning him down, tasting the salt of his skin. Sometimes fucking Brian was like fucking the ocean. Sometimes it was like being enveloped, like when you run into the waves as a kid and get knocked ass over tea-kettle. It’s something he tried to explain one time, over too many beers, just the two of them, and Brian had cocked his head and grinned. But Dom didn’t think he got it. But long as he stayed, as long as he was happy, he didn’t have to understand.

Dom tuned back in and thought there were so many better things for Brian to do with his hands than the dishes. He unsettled from the counter and stalked forward on the balls of his feet. He thought he’d snuck up, but just as he was about to tuck his hands into the front of Brian’s jeans, Brian turned around, wet hands held up like a surgeon’s.

“Give me a second to clean up, then we’ll go and take care of you.” He said it like that was something people said, like it was a normal thing to say in your kitchen when your friends were twenty feet away. He reached behind himself for the brown hand towel and dried his hands with practiced movements. Dom could catch the edges but not the details of the movements. It wasn’t just the dark outside that was blurring his vision.

“I can see you thinking,” Brian said, and Dom had that feeling again. The feeling that Brian could drive through him if he ever decided to. Just ruin him entirely. Open him up with a wrench and take whatever he wanted. And it had taken practice and fuck-ups, but Dom had carved that hole for him to live in. Let him know those things that would rip him to pieces.

Brian wrapped his hands around Dom’s chest and pulled him in. He said into the crook of his neck:   “You’re going to go upstairs and I’ll follow in a few. Think about what you want us to do.”

Dom liked this part, the teasing part. Sometimes they were gruff and tired. Sometimes they were silly and childish in a way he had never been as a child. But sometimes they did this thing. This, telling each other what to do thing. Not at the same time, and usually it was Dom telling Brian what to do, but sometimes. Some nights it worked out this way. And Dom liked the stretch of it, the difference from the way things usually were.

He took the stairs two at a time, allowing himself a grin in the warm California dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Dom was laying back on the bed, a low light in the corner hinting at the terracotta tiles, the white plaster walls, the thick rug they’d brought back from Monaco. Dom liked the way the rug felt between his toes, but he liked the way Brian gripped the edges of it when he was fucking him even more. Something about the blood-red and tiger-black of the pattern made Brian glow like Maria de Guadeloupe with a candle up her ass.

He knew Brian would want him to have an idea of what they would do before he heard the soft pad of Brian's feet on the stairs. He thought they’d suck each other off. He was tired from a day of pulling everyone together. It was like coals at the base of a fire, these dinners. Mia had been talking about getting a trailer, so she could come on long trips and nurse comfortably. They'd discussed the benefits of an RV vs a trailer, but hadn't gotten to a conclusion. They took time and tending, but they were the reason the entire crew could burst into flame when they needed to.

Dom and Brian, they were the match and the newspaper and the tinder-chips, which took energy. He needed to gather a bit of himself back after evenings like this. That’s why he wasn’t looking for something as intense as being inside Brian. Unless that was what Brian was hoping for, then he could probably manage that.

He hooked a thumb in his jeans, still in his dinner clothes. For a while, he and Brian had greeted each other naked, and it had been novel. But he’d found they missed out on the teasing, the foreplay that came with getting out of clothes, and it had left the sex a bit hollow. Still fun, but less full than it had been. So they’d gotten back out of that habit and nearly always started while wearing clothes.

There: Brian’s soft feet on the cherrywood stairs. Dom adjusted himself in his pants. He wanted to be clear, but not obvious. There Brian was on the top of the stairs, there the thump of him going over the rug, there the softened sound of his footfalls. He saw the door crack open and there it was. That glint of a smile, that curve of blond hair across his forehead. Dom couldn’t quite keep the feeling behind his face, and he could feel his grin rising. But he twisted it a bit, making it a smirk. Brian lowered his head and looked at Dom the way they both looked at a new piece on the road. Dom felt his stomach turn over.

Brian reached their bed and climbed on, moving like he had muscles in places no human had muscles. He crawled up Dom’s body, and Dom kept his hands to himself, letting Brian take what he wanted, and gladly.

Brian leaned down and rubbed his face in a long line against the straining press of Dom’s dick. Dom sucked air between his teeth and tried to think of something else, of some other places, not this overwhelming one. He wasn’t 16 anymore, but shit. This was tough not to jerk into. Brian knew what it did to him and fucking loved fucking with his sense of control.

Dom moved a hand towards Brian’s head, but didn’t land it, didn’t push him down or grip his waiting curls. He thought about it, and let Brian feel that. Brian didn’t look up, but he arched into Dom’s hand, and Dom took that as permission to settle his hand down on Brian’s head, feeling the warm shape of it, guiding their bodies into a long line until he was breathing Brian's air.

The kiss was warm and wet and closed-lipped and then Brian bore down, making sure Dom knew the strength he was bringing, cupping his hand against Dom’s straining cock. Dom bared his teeth into the kiss and then let Brian in, letting him push past all of his defenses. He wondered for a moment if it would ever feel less like he was grinding open the doors to a shop one cranky wheel turn after another. Sometimes he could feel his alarms being disabled one by one, and sometimes he thought Brian could feel it too. There were nights they went so slow it was like dying for each touch to connect. Sometimes all his defenses were already down and they raided each other fast and gleeful. But mostly, they did the work of opening his touches up together.

Dom took control of the kiss, pushing Brian up and back, and Brian went willingly, giving Dom enough room to start on his zipper. Brian took his break in concentration to move back down his body, kissing his way through Dom’s shirt, and Dom fumbled slightly on the zipper at the onslaught of wet heat. He knew he’d have to wash this shirt after, but he didn’t care.

He hooked a heel over the back of Brian’s legs, holding him close and tight. Brian finally got his zipper open and mouthed open and lush against his briefs. Brian had a thing about kissing through clothing. Something about the texture or the messiness or the weirdness or the roughness of it really did it for him, so Dom enjoyed the slightly-dulled feeling, working his fingers against Brian’s skull, just connecting there. Brian finally got his mouth around his head, and Dom saw sparks.

Brian brought all of that wildfire attention to bear when given head. Dom had been desperately paying attention to the blurred sensations of Brian’s tongue and lips through his briefs, that when he finally put willing flesh to willing flesh it was—Dom jerked up into Brian’s mouth, a push of precum coming free. Dom felt a rush of embarrassment—he wasn’t easy—but then he remembered he was, at least for Brian. Just one of the many things he'd known about himself had proved more situational than he’d expected.

Dom moved his hand from the back of Brian’s head and hooked his thumb into the waistband of his briefs, revealing himself entirely. Brian chased the waistband, lips never far from its retreating edge. Dom raised up, getting his jeans and briefs down around his hips so they weren’t crushing any part of him and then fell back onto the bed, the heat of Brian’s mouth suddenly too much. He felt himself relaxing and tensing in just that right way, getting there the long way; then he heard Brian muttering:

“Yeah, like that, give it up,” Dom felt a rise of irritation. That wasn’t how he liked to be talked to. But he let the tone ride over him and he felt what it meant, the safety he felt in Brian’s arms and mouth and hands and ass. And it was giving something up, and getting something more, so the words weren’t wrong. He just wasn’t used to it.

The sensation started to build again for him, and Brian brought his hand into the mix, giving Dom more friction and feeling to work with, and probably giving his lips a break. Dom started to find a rhythm then put a firm hand down on Brian’s shoulder. Brian raised up and Dom had to close his eyes. That fucked-out look in his eyes, his puffed-up lips, that sheen of wetness. Evidence of things done. He took a vicious grip on his brain and said:  

“This how you want to end tonight?”

Brian’s eyes unhooded for a moment, like he was bringing another set of gears into the mix. Possibly higher ones.

Then he nodded a bit to himself and said: “Yeah. I said let’s take care of you. I meant it.”

Dom nodded, but kept his hand on his shoulder. He said: “I’d like to, with you too, if…”

“Yeah,” Brian said, and began to lower his head, so he said these words like a prayer over Dom’s cock: “After, let’s do it.”

Dom’s eyes rolled toward the headboard and his hands tightened in Brian’s heap of curls at what happened next. He ran his hand down Brian’s head, over to his neck and held onto his shoulder. He could feel the coil of strength in him, the build up waiting to unwind and ping around his body like a unhooked shock.

One more push and it took him hard. He had the sense to yank his hands to his stomach so he didn’t choke Brian down trying to fuck his face. His fingers clawed at his skin, blunt nails not catching but turning into fists as the force of the change moved through him. He bucked once, twice, and then Brian was pulled up, hand holding his cock. He thought fleetingly if Brian was doing it to keep him company, not wanting to make leaving his mouth has much of a loss as it must always feel like when he was on the other end. He wondered if the tension in his arm, calloused hand was meant to tease or comfort. Maybe both.

He turned his face to the side and threw up his arm to cover his face as he breathed out the rest of it. He trusted Brian with his life and his cock and his heart but he had a lifetime of of cold-facing his way through and when he was this raw, he couldn’t be that open way with him. He hoped Brian would forgive him. That was his last clear thought as he went through the last few slowdown bumps of the roller coaster.

Brian settled back on his heels and stroked his hands down Dom’s thighs, getting to his knees and standing to get undressed. Dom slowly rose back up to himself, started being able to feel his skin, see how his body was around and with Brian’s. Brian crawled into bed as Dom took himself out of his clothes, suddenly too slow to stand up. He lay back and Brian bracketed him with his arms, hair hanging down. He reached out to brush hair out of Brian’s face and his cheek followed to cup itself in his palm. Dom drew him down, and Brian followed him, keeping his thigh from crushing Dom’s spent dick.

Brian was all limbs even in their California King bed. He swam into the covers, kicking the sheet up and over their hips. It was something about how he’d grown up sleeping; now matter the heat, he could never fall sleep without something covering his skin, something that could be Dom’s arm, but was usually a light sheet.

“‘Night,” Brian said droopily. Dom knew he was forgetting something, but he just couldn't think past the sex fog. He fumbled the light off and let a soft smile come through at Brian’s moonlight-highlighted skin.

Dom smoothed his hand over Brian’s hair one last time, feeling his hand drop, nerveless, as he fell into the spent tank of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of plot, for a change.

Dom woke up muzzy and confused. There was the sound of thumping, but it wasn’t a suped-up ride cruising down the pre-dawn street. It wasn’t cops pounding on his door. And it absolutely wasn’t a bed frame knocking against the wall; Mia had the baby tonight.

He pulled the unreasonably plush blanket away from his face and reoriented.

Brian was standing, with a duffle open at his feet, looking between two pairs of boots. Dom could have seen it was always going to end this way, he was always going to be the last choice of someone like Brian. He rolled his hand back along the top his head, trying to get himself some space, eyes closed and breath too deep to be natural. Brian must have noticed, because he said with a flat voice:

“‘Morning.”

Dom stilled. That wasn’t the tone of a man sneaking out of his partner’s house in the early morning. There was something terribly wrong in it, but not that.

“What’s up, Bri?”  


Brian looked down at the bag and then at Dom, an almost comical look of horror crossing over his face before it slid into a forced grin, hands still holding the shoes.

“Oh, you know, running off with the maid.”

Dom pulled himself up against the headboard and played along:

“We don't have a maid, Brian.”  
  
Brian shook his head, “If we did, well, he’d have to wear something frankly illegal to tempt me away when I had you in my bed.” 

He thought for a second, “Nah, not even that would work for me.” 

He looked back at the two pairs of boots in his hands and then tossed one pair in the bag and the other behind him into the closet, thump loud in the early morning quiet. He finally caught that the pair in the bad were his, and unless Brian was stealing his boots, he truly was not leaving.

Brian was squatting in front of the bag, zipping it up. He said to the closing zipper:   
  
“I think I need to show you something.”

“What do you need to show me?”

“There’s things that are going to come up, things that I’m going to fuck up because of the way I am.”

“That’s some deep shit, Brian,” Dom moved to stand, to loom, to get some goddam answers, but he tried not to, holding still by the skin of his damn teeth.

“What is going on?”  
  
Brian hung his head, then looked at Dom through the fringe of his blond hair.  
  
“It’s easier if I show you than tell. It’s a 4 hour drive, it will all make sense once we get there.”  
  
“Where?” Dom asked.

“Barstow.”

—

The drive started out like a milk run, or a trip to Tej’s place. But then it kept going. And going. Past the suburban hell of Inland Empire. Miles and miles of grey freeway past miles and miles of bland, blah houses. Dom tried to imagine people leading real lives in those houses, maybe even a few racers coming from them, but he couldn’t. It was just too boring to believe.

After a time of driving, Brian took an exit before Barstow proper, if there was such a thing. 23,000 people. That was a few blocks of apartments in downtown, not enough to fill so much dry land. Dom kept his eyes on the road, but let his face drift closed. He didn’t try to be open, not yet, not knowing what Brian wanted from him.

They followed a side street, Brian merging lanes with the certainty of practice. Then they were entering a trailer park. Dom started to get that itch behind his neck, that feeling that things would change and soon. It was the feeling he’d gotten before his last job in LA. The feeling he’d gotten right before Hobbs showed up.

Brian just drove, looking out at the rows and rows of trailers around them. White and grey and striped and with huge screaming eagles and finned and glistering silver Winabagoes. The lucky ones had cinder blocks in front of their tires, but some were on cinderblocks. Barely any had air in what tires they had. Rows and rows of them, columns and columns. A few kids, sitting in the dirt. Old tables propped up with scrap plywood. Not much else.

“They have fucking _wheels_.” Dom was quiet. He shared the sentiment, but it was the first thing Brian had said in 200 miles and he figured he should wait him out. They passed a white one with brown striping and a huge print of an eagle pasted on its ass. Its wheels were deflated, rims grinding into the dirt.

“You _live_ in these things, you have to walk past four wheels every _single_ day that never one that is going to turn. No one is ever going to ride out.” Dom stayed quiet, letting Brian’s rage wash over him.

He pointed, finger jamming hard against the sun-hot glass:

“Look, look at that one.”

Dom thought it might be the baby-blue one with the Costco table bolted to the side.

“That one has _never_ left. It is _never_ going to _leave_.”

Brian shook his head and kept going, deeper and deeper into the park.

“And that one,” he pointed across Dom’s body, and Dom took solace for a moment in his closeness, the only thing he understood in this fucking weird day.

“That one doesn’t even have _wheels_ anymore. These things are supposed to fly, suppose to take you far away, but they trap you. If you’re here, you’re trapped.”

He slapped his hand down on the dash and slowed, finding a place out of the way of the non-existent traffic to park. Brian opened the door and yanked the keys out, walking down what passed for an alley.

Dom locked up, tucking his keys in his back pocket. He left his leather jacket in the car, too hot in the summer sun to wear it out.  He’d lost site of Brian, but he walked in the direction he’d seen him head. It was easy to find him, he was standing outside of a mildew-stained white RV, eyes fixed and bright.

Dom stepped carefully, like he was walking into a fight. For all he knew, he was.

Dom came close enough to touch and Brian swayed towards him. Brian wasn’t into displays in public, but he hooked his hand around Dom’s arm, two fingers on the inside of his wrist, like he was checking his pulse. Dom unclenched his fist, trying to be soft, trying to be what Brian needed.

“This is the fucking place.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dom had heard Brian swear more on this day than any other he’d had with him in years. Not when they lost Letty or found her, not when he’d had nothing and not when they won everything together. But he was stripped down, somehow younger today. No callouses.

He tore his eyes away from the trailer. It looked like it had been empty for a while. There was a dust on the foot of the step up to the crookedly-hung door. Dom waited Brian, watching as his eyes flared opened and stayed wide, staring at something too far in the back of his mind to see with closed eyes. His hands clenching into fists, nails scraping Dom’s inner wrist on the way. His voice was tight and flat, when he started to talk, like he was reciting a police report:

“I was in the system. My mom, she couldn’t—she couldn’t keep me, after my dad left. She left me with some friends, and they dumped me on some of their friends, and I took off. I ended up here for a few months. This was my last place before I met Rome.”

His voice stayed toneless, but it warmed when he said his friend’s name, just like it always did.

“They didn’t have room for me, but the worker never checked. I slept over there,” he pointed to a group of trees with nothing but dust beneath them, and gnarled roots.

“I didn’t get to school. I could work on cars, if anyone had any. There wasn’t food, so I stole or begged.”

His voice began to shake.

“I wasn’t good at it. I got caught. I got beat. I stayed hungry. I stayed.”

He was trying to talk like this happened to someone else, as Dom felt the ocean of rage in his veins, rising up through his legs, about to engulf his heart. If it made it to his head, he wouldn’t have much left to think with.

“I stayed for months. They kept my things, kept me here. Maybe I was dumb enough to think the worker would come by, see the problem, get me out. I didn’t want to get stuck in a group home again.” He closed his eyes.

“I got beat. I got beat and didn’t hide it and the family that used to be over there,” he pointed to the powder blue trailer, “dropped me off at the ER. They wouldn’t let me come back. They kept everything I had here and wouldn’t pay the postage to send it to me. Only picture I had of my Mom, only book I had from my Dad, all here or all gone.”

He shook his head, voice angry at himself.

“I shouldn’t have been so freaked by the group home, ‘cause I met Rome there. Got better at cars, got better at not getting caught. Getting beat unconscious when I was 15 was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He turned to Dom, his arm tight against his chest, holding close like he was keeping his heart beating by the force of it.

“I stayed here, Dom. I learned to get fucked over and keep coming back. I lost my taste for being safe and decided to get hurt rather than get kicking out. I learned bad habits.”

Dom took it in, then flexed his hand, wrapping it around Brian’s wrist.

“That shit they did to you was fucked up. You survived. You made it out. Maybe you need to be sure you can run, but I know what that feels like. And I won’t, I would never hurt you like this.”

Brian laughed and it was a scary, broken thing.

“It’s not you I’m worried about Dom. I might do this to you, to Mia. I learned how, how to keep people trapped with me who want to leave, how hurt people just enough so they’ll stay. They say abusers always started out getting abused.”

Dom loosened his hand on Brian’s wrist, but kept his fingers encircling.

“And I know how to defend myself. Not from punches and kicks, though that too, but Mia and me, we know how to tell safe people. You’ve made yourself safe. You’ll keep yourself from doing it and now I can help you. I won’t let me hurt you, or you hurt yourself. I have too much in you to let it go to waste.”

Brian nodded, eyes tight on Dom’s now, like he was desperate to believe him.

Dom put his hand on Brian’s arm but he was unyielding. After a few breaths, he tried to guide Brian away, but he wouldn’t move. He had his eyes closed and was trying to focus on the door, burn holes init with his eyes.

Dom was sure there was no one in there, and the likelihood there was anything of Brian’s in there was so low, but, they were stuck standing here.

He started to walk up to the abandoned RV.

“Dom, what are you doing.”

Dom turned to look at Brian, face stony.

“If they took your things, they might have left them, Bri.”

Brian’s face was a mask of conflicting emotions. A flash of hope, a gash of pain.

“I can’t go in there.”

“Head back to the car, I’ve got it from here.”

Dom waited until Brian started walking back to the car, and put his hand on the door. It stuck, had some kind of sticky shit on it that stuck to his hand. He forced it, bunching his muscles and doing what violence he could. It opened with a wail. He wanted to get out of here; he wanted to hurt something for hurting Brian; he wanted to find those pictures and that book, to give Brian something back for what was taken from him here.

The door opened and out came a rush of rotting linoleum smell. It must have been terrible, but leave a shithole like this alone to rot long enough and all of the bad smells merge into one ugly one. It looked like a nest of raccoons had made a home in one of the bench seats, before abandoning the place like the previous occupants. 

Dom slapped open the glove compartment and rifled through, but it looked like the title and handbook were the only things there, along with some condoms. He shook those onto the floor and resisted the urge to wipe his hand on his jeans. He might have to touch something else soon, and he’d rather not gum himself up more than he needed to to get what he needed.

He heard a creak on the stairs outside, and he was turning, ready to confront, to fuck up, when he saw a flash of blond. It was Brian, and his eyes were so wide. His shoulders were hunched in, hair over his face like he was hiding. Dom wanted to fireman carry him out of this place, but maybe they could get out of here faster if Brian helped look.

“They slept in there,” he said, pointing without looking. Dom walked past him to the back of the RV, slowing when Brian put a hand around his wrist. He pressed it against his chest, and Brian breathed out. Then he broke contact and went towards the bedroom.

The bed was a ruin, rot and animals having ripped it apart. There was a hole in the middle big enough to hide a child, and nothing in the shelves but dust and droppings. He was about to start to toss the bed when he caught a flash of something in the corner. He went over, and looked. It was a small safe.

There were a set of keys next to it, with one snapped in half. Sure enough, there it was, judged in the lock. He looked at it, and tried to lift it. Heavy, but manageable. As he rocked it to get his fingers under it, he saw flashes of kind of people who would make a foster kid sleep outside and beat him for getting something to eat, that would spend some of the money that came in for him buying a safe like this one. That they would use his only possessions to keep him captive, to keep him from running, to keep their checks coming in.

He called out: “I found a safe,” and he heard something drop, shatter in the doorway. He turned to see Brian was frozen, face broken open in a look of horror.

“That’s where they kept them. They would show me, when they were about to,”

Dom clenched his fists and his teeth. He had nothing he could say, as he watched Brian start to shake.

“I can carry it out. We’ll get Tej to open it.”

Brian looked at him, face frozen. Like it was being extracted from him, he asked:

“Do you need me to help?”

Dom was shaking his head even before he finished. Brian was too freaked.

“You can go to the car for real this time, Bri, I’ve got this,”

Brian nodded, head jerky, with none of his easy grace.

Dom waited, counting to thirty, before standing. It was heavy, but he was pissed. He stepped forward once, then again, and thought about punching the teeth out of Brian’s foster father. Navigating it out of the narrow doorway, he thought about setting him on fire. Carrying it down the road to the car, he thought about beating him to death with a tire iron.

By the time he made it to the trunk, open with Brian standing next to it, carefully not looking at him, he had ratcheted it down to imagining his foster father dying a quick death at the hands of some banger.

—

The drive back was quiet. Brian drove, and Dom kept his eyes on his clenched fists until they were well clear of the trailer park. He didn’t relax until there was a break in traffic and he was able to look to the clear horizon and see the rising tide of sky-scrapers greeting them. Brian’s hands were white on the wheel, forearms shaking with the tension. He started easing down, and then something would kick his breathing back up, pull him back. Dom thought it was the sound of the safe shifting in the back of the trunk, or the sight of an RV lumbering ahead of them on a road-trip down the state.

They made it home and Brian turned off the car, opened his door, and started walking up the driveway without saying anything. Dom got out and locked his door and Bri’s. He walked behind him, close enough to see him fumble with the door key. Dom saw him lean his head on the door, forehead rolling back and forth along the wood. He couldn’t see his face or hear him say anything, but then there was a snick of the key in the lock and Brian was in. Dom followed, and saw Brian begin to strip, just leaving his shirt at the foot of the stairs.

Dom followed, shutting and locking the front door. Brian yanked his foot out of one shoe, left it on the step, then the other, leaving it on the landing. Dom picked up his shirt, then the shoe, then the other one. Brian disappeared around the corner into the bathroom and Dom let him. He went to their bedroom and tossed the shoes in the closet, hanging the shirt over the back of a chair. He heard the shower start up and the fan go on. The shower went for long a long time, long enough Dom was sure it was just spitting out cold water.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, but the story isn't done. I'll have a sequel going up soon. We talked a little bit more about what Brian's foster family did, so if that squicks you, please read something kinder.

_Hey, can you bring your oxy torches to our place tomorrow?_

_sure, why?_

_I’ve got a project. For Brian._

Tej closed out of the game he was modding. He’d heard from Mia that something was up with Brian, that he and Dom had left early that morning. She’d said when they’d come back and they’d holed up in their room without coming out.

Tej wasn’t one to carry someone else’s water, but this was family. If a little industrial-strength welding could help whatever this was, he’d be there.

—

Dom left their room to answer the door, glancing back at Brian, still sleeping though it was past 9am. Dom had made sure Brian had gotten some water before they went to sleep and eaten some left overs from the BBQ, which now seemed years away. But he wasn’t talking, not really. He didn’t have the ability to leave the dark of their space just yet.

Tej had knocked, even though he had a key. Dom opened it up and waved him around to their backyard. He’d thought about bringing the safe to Tej’s shop, but even with their relationships, breaking into a safe in public was just not smart.

Dom went to the garage and carried the thing into the backyard. He laid it on the sturdy table Tej had constructed out of saw horses and a few pieces of plywood. 

“What can you tell me about it?” Tej asked. Dom shook his head, saying:  
  
“We found it in a place where Brian lived, and we think it has some of his things from when he was a kid. He wasn’t the one who locked his things in there. The key was broken off inside when we found it.”

Tej nodded. He asked when the safe would have been made, all the while looking it over, crouching down to look at the bottom for markings.

“Give me a few hours, we’ll get her open.” Dom nodded. He got Tej a pitcher of water and some of the cornbread from the Sunday dinner. He got ready to head inside. Tej called out:

“It looks like the key’s fused to the lock. I’m going to see if I can get it out with these.” he brandished what looked like a pair of tooth brushes from the corner store. Dom nodded and went back inside to Brian’s silent form.

—

Dom lay down beside Brian, and he could tell from his breathing that he was awake. He put his arm above Brian’s head. His eyes were closed, but his hand crept out, gripping Dom’s broad wrist. Dom pressed his mouth to the back of Brian’s head and let his own breathing slow. He wasn’t much into visualizations, he preferred doing work to thinking about it. But he tried to think of his calm pouring into Brian’s back and Brian’s pain coming back into him. He could take it.

—

After an hour of lying down, he needed to get out and move. He stood and Brian rolled over into the warm spot he’d made. He gave a small smile and let his eyes drift closed again. The sunlight was like a golden furnace through the curtains but there was nothing to help it. This was LA in the summer. The wooden floor seemed to soak up the defused light, making the entire room glow like Brian’s skin. Dom wished he’d been willing to sleep naked, like they usually did, but there was something that made that hard for Brian right now. They’d both slept in sweats, and Dom was itchy.

He brushed a last kiss on Brian’s outflung arm and lived off of the small smile he got. He walked out of the door, picking his boots out of their shared duffel on the way. He sat on the stairs and laced them up, listening to the sounds of Jack and Mia downstairs. He knew Jack was only his blood through Mia, but he felt like his son. He hadn’t been the kind of father he wanted to be these past few days, focusing on Brian. That was the best part of their family situation, that there were people to take up the slack. The worst parts were when he could feel himself slipping into taking advantage of it.

He walked down the stairs saw Mia sitting on the couch, reading with Jack drowsing on her lap, head on her shoulder. He met Mia’s eyes.

“He’ll be fine. I can take him for the day—go on, you can get out of the house for a few hours.” She nodded and smiled tightly. She pressed her forehead against his as she handed Jack over. Dom smiled down at him and said again to his mother:  
  
“He’ll be fine. He just needs time.” Mia nodded.

“Let me know if there’s more I can do. I’ll get some extra food, I have a feeling we’re going to need to whole family here for the next few days.” Dom nodded. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but if he could have 2 days eaten by this, he expected he could have more than that, and if Mia needed the support then Brian surely did.

Dom carried Jack outside and as he started to wake up, asked him what games he’d like to play today.

—

After a few hours, Tej took a break. He took a Corona over to where Dom was sitting in the grass, constructing a race-track made of blocks with Jack. He sat in the grass and admired their work. His voice was low as he asked:

“Brian’s got some stuff in there?”  
  
Dom nodded.

“He didn’t put it in there?”  
 

Dom nodded again, hands stilling.

“I think I’ve got it. I should be able to pick it, it will a few more hours.”

Dom nodded and Tej stood. They heard Mia’s car get back and Tej headed out to help her carry in the groceries. Dom glanced at the curtained window where he knew Brian slept, but when Jack rolled his car down the ramp he went back to building.

—

The race track was on its second rebuild when Dom felt a presence behind him that wasn’t Mia. Brian sat, leg firm against Dom’s. He was in jeans and a comfortable shirt. He looked tight around the eyes and when Jack came over for his hug he buried his face in his soft hair. 

“What’d you build, guy?”

“Race track!” Jack called, arms flung out to his creation.

Dom said, confidentially, “It’s his second round; I think he’s going for more jumps this time.”

Brian looked over the construction, with its steep dive for momentum and sharp turns.

“Want to show me what it does?”  
  
“Not yet! Not finished!” Jack said and then squirmed out of his Dad’s arms and back to the track. They sat in silence as he knocked over a section and began rebuilding it. The sound of metal scraping on metal hovered in the background as the wind blew through the trees. Brian’s voice was half an octave lower when he said:

“I knew they wouldn’t give them back. I _knew_ it. I wasn’t dumb.”

He was speaking like he was talking to himself, rehearsing to explain before the cameras. “They took them from me, but I knew they wouldn’t give them back. But I _stayed_. Why did I stay? I knew, I _knew_.”

Dom leaned his shoulder into Brian, unclenching his fist and slowly putting his arm around Brian’s lower back. He knew it was touch-and-go whether he wanted the contact, but then Brian leaned into him. He let his voice get even quieter, eyes never leaving Jack.

“I _stayed_ even though they were going to hurt me. I let it be home, there. I let them be family, without knowing what that would mean," he turned in Dom's arm and spoke to him, eyes too wide, too bright in the morning light:

“I didn't know what it would do to me to do that, what it would take from me. I thought I was being brave.”

He broke off, eyes squeezing shut.

Dom brought his other arm around him, and pulled Brian in. He tied to say it low enough for just Brian to hear:

“You are brave. You were supposed to be safe and they weren’t safe. They might have been a family, but they were never yours. You don’t have to let them be now. They didn’t protect you, so you can decide they weren’t family. You get to.”

Dom nodded, feeling cold from exposure. It was all he could do to push what warmth he had towards Brian, to try to warm his bones. Brian slowly unclenched his shoulders and let his head rest on Dom’s shoulder. Jack looked over with worried eyes but kept playing.

Moments later, Tej let out a soft: “ _Yes_.” and Brian was up, walking over to him. Dom stood too and got Jack.

“Hey wild man, I think Mom needs some help inside. How about some Sesame Street?”  
  
Jack glanced over at Brian.

“Dad’s fine, he just needs to have some grown-up talk with Unc. Let’s get Mom.” Jack nodded and they walked inside. Dom handed Jack over and turned to look through the window outside as Mia distracted Jack.

Without ceremony, Tej swung the door open and leaned down, phone on flashlight mode lighting up the dark interior. As Dom watched, he reached inside and pulled out a stack of papers and things, laying them out on the work table. Brian had stopped a few feet away, his hands in his back pockets. He then closed the distance with a few quick steps. He twisted his hands behind his back, holding them tight and twisting them so the blood fled and they were left white, like entangled bones.

Dom started back outside as Brian froze. He stepped to the side so he could see what brought that reaction and saw a binder, like the kind people kept family photos in. He stepped over to Brian, close enough to touch, hoping he was giving him the strength to hold his back straight, even as he tried to scan over the mess he saw on the table.

A stack of birth certificates. An album of photos. Half a dozen books. And a small, stuffed bear with a faded bow around its neck. Dom’s heart felt like it had just been at the business end of a 4 lane pile-up. A cold part of him wondered how many kids had failed to get licenses, get passports, get jobs without their birth certificates. He couldn’t even wonder about the bear, about the kind who would take a toy from a child and lock it in a safe.

He sliced his eye to the side to gauge Brian’s reaction. His hands were still behind his back, but he was leaning in, eyes scanning.

Tej pulled out a few more books that had been pushed the very back, and Brian surged forward, grabbing one of them.

_The Jungle Book_ was printed in silver on its dark cloth spine. The lettering was still sharp after what must have been more than a decade in the box. Brian opened it, fingers careful on the frayed strings on the edges. He held it open and there it was, an inscription:

_To my little wild man_

_Love,_

_Da_

He wanted more than anything to hug Brian, to thank Tej, to _do_ something. But he didn’t know yet. Had Brian’s pictures been in there? He didn’t have everything he needed for this safe. He needed Brian to tell him, but he was still wondering over the book.

Tej had finished emptying the safe and had taken a step back, his eyes getting wider as he looked over the piles on the table. His voice was loud in the quiet of the yard:

“Bri, what the fuck is this stuff?”  
  
Brian shrugged, eyes intent on the photo album. He reached out and pulled it to him, opened it and flipping through, scanning each page, eyes bright, mouth closed. Dom stepped in.

“Brian stayed with the people who left this thing, for a while. Before he met Rome. After his folks weren’t around.”

Tej nodded and Dom continued:

“It was something they did, keeping what kids brought. It kept the kids with them.”

“That’s fucked up,” Tej said, and Brian’s eyes snapped to his, his face blank.

Tej looked straight at him, saying, “That’s fucked up. We need to get these back to them.”

Brian’s fingers paused on the open photo album, pages thick with the stolen memories. He was frozen so long Dom was starting to get worried, but then he thawed, snapped back into the thread of things. He wiped his fingers on his shirt, then down the inside inseams of this jeans, checking them for stains. Slowly, never touching the front, he edged the photo out. It held a blond child with Jack’s eyes standing with tall woman and a short, dark-haired man. It was a posed Macy’s shot, but with it in his hands Brian’s eyes looked calmer than they had since they got into the car for Barstow. He flipped open _The Jungle Book_ and slid the photo in next to the inscription, eyes never leaving it.

“Yes. We need to do that.”

Tej met Dom’s eyes behind Brian’s hunched back. They both one it would be tough to get to that many people to get that much exposure for an issue long dead. Dom looked over at the photo. Brian’s fingers hovered over it. Dom moved forward to touch the album, flipping forwards and backwards. There wasn't an open slot anywhere in it but for the photo Brian had removed. There must have been hundreds of photos. Pictures of dogs with timestamp in the 80s. Pictures of entire family. Solo shots of siblings together. Some were of the same families, some kids had only one photo with the min it. It was hard to look at, but by the end he was with Tej. These needed to get back to their owners. The difficulty of that task in no way diminished how much it needed doing.

Dom looked over the other stuff on the table. The birth certificates might be enough to get what information they needed to find some of these people, the survivors of Brian’s foster family flung out into the world. They might need to work through some authorities whose databases should have some of them. He knew Elena would help, and probably Hobbs too. Dom glanced over. Brian tried to be calm and cool and still, but he could never manage it.

“We’re going to get these back to them.” His voice was filled with certainty.

Dom nodded and glanced over to Tej. He nodded too, eyes still wide. Time to go to work.


End file.
